Sula

Reading Check and Short Answer questions on key plot points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.

Part 1, Preface-Chapter 3 (1919-1921)

Reading Check

1. What happened to the neighborhood known as Medallion?

2. What celebration does Shadrack found in Medallion?

3. What is Helene’s relationship with her mother?

4. What does Eva do to her son Plum?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. How does Medallion come to be situated on a hill but referred to as “the Bottom”?

2. What is the purpose of Shadrack’s yearly celebration?

3. How does the friendship between Nel and Sula begin?

4. Who lives in Eva’s house along with her family and why?

Paired Resource

Elysium

• This encyclopedia entry explains the reference in the street name Elysian Fields, where “Cecile Sabat’s house leaned between two others just like it.”
• Do you think the street name is intended to be descriptive or ironic? Why?

Part 1, Chapters 4-6 (1922-1927)

Reading Check

1. Which male character catches the attention of Sula and Nel as they walk toward the ice cream parlor?

2. What does Shadrack say to Sula when she visits his home?

3. What two questions does Hannah put to Eva, which upset her?

4. What happens to Hannah in the yard?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What happens to Chicken Little?

2. How do Sula and Nel react immediately to the loss of Chicken Little?

3. How does Sula react to Hannah’s situation in the yard?

4. Why does Nel marry Jude?

Paired Resource

Genesis 9:19-29

• The ancient historian Flavius Josephus claimed that Ham’s descendants populated Africa. The bargeman who pulls Chicken Little from the river ponders “God’s curse and the terrible burden his own kind had of elevating Ham’s sons.”
• Connects to the theme of Family, Community, and the Burden of Legacies
• Consider the role of religion in the Black community and in the racism toward it. What evidence of this influence do you see in Chapters 4-6?

Part 2, Chapters 7-8 (1937-1939)

Reading Check

1. What accompanies Sula on her return to Medallion?

2. What causes the break in Sula and Nel’s friendship?

3. What elements does Sula believe make up Ajax?

4. Why does Ajax leave Sula?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What is the nature of Sula’s reunion with Eva?

2. What is the nature of Nel’s pain?

3. In what ways is Ajax different from Sula’s other lovers?

4. What purpose does Sula serve for the people of Medallion?

Paired Resource

“Ajax the Great in Greek Mythology”

• This article explains the background of the name Ajax.
• Consider whether the Greek Ajax and Morrison’s Ajax share commonalities. How is this comparison affected when readers learn the character’s name is A. Jacks?

Part 2, Chapters 9-10 (1940-1941)

Reading Check

1. What causes a brief reunion between Sula and Nel?

2. What notion of Nel’s does Sula challenge?

3. Why does Shadrack decide the 1941 National Suicide Parade will be the last?

4. What is different about the National Suicide Parade in 1941?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. How is Shadrack related to Sula’s death?

2. What is Sula’s final thought?

3. How does Sula’s death affect Medallion?

4. What is the result of the 1941 Suicide Day Parade?

Paired Resource

“Always” by Pablo Neruda

• The word “always” links Sula and Shadrack. Imagine Shadrack saying the lines of Neruda’s poem to Sula.
• Consider the ways in which this poem supports Shadrack’s intended meaning of “permanence” when he utters the word “always” to Sula.

Part 2, Chapters 11 (1965)

Reading Check

1. Of what does Eva accuse Nel?

2. What is Eva’s response to Nel’s defense that it was Sula who killed Chicken Little?

3. Whom does Eva say is giving her information about Nel?

4. Following Sula’s funeral, whom does Nel pass on the road?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Why does Eva keep mentioning oranges during her visit with Nel?

2. How does Eva address Nel as she leaves

3. What do Nel and Shadrack have in common?

4. What is Nel’s final realization?

Paired Resource

“For Good” from Wicked

• The musical Wicked is about a relationship between two friends, one considered “good” and the other “bad,” or wicked.
• Connects to the theme of Friendships Between Women
• Consider the ways in which the lyric “Because I knew you / I have been changed for good” applies to the relationship between Sula and Nel.

Recommended Next Reads

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

• Like Sula, Hester Prynne is a “marked woman.” Sula wears a birthmark above her eye that is described in varying ways, and Hester wears the scarlet letter A. In both cases, the mark causes others to view the woman as deviant. Also in both cases, the woman’s deviance is linked to sexuality.
• The Scarlet Letter on SuperSummary

Divergent by Veronica Roth

• In this dystopia, deviance or divergence in both men and women is met with ostracism by a community that values conformity.
• Divergent on SuperSummary